An RST Christmas
by BiteMeTechie
Summary: [Clerks] Dante always seems to be the one who gets the interesting customers...until tonight, that is...


I had this _really_ weird Dante related dream the other night. I won't recount exactly what happened, because that would scare several of you, but lets just call it _weird_. I think I might need therapy to get over it.

Anyways, I took it as my Muse none too gently prodding me in the direction of the Clerks fandom. And since I _just_ re-watched it and remembered just how much I _adore_ Randal, I felt like dipping a toe into the Jersey waters. Blame this on watching Clerks and Scrooged _way_ too close together.

Oh God...I just got an idea for another one shot.

----

Dante always got the interesting customers.

Randal always got the stupid ones.

Granted, Dante got his share of those too, but nowhere _near_ as many as Randal.

And they weren't even _interesting_ stupid customers, just a steady stream of moron after moron with no distinguishing characteristics other than their all encompassing idiocy.

He could count on the fingers of one hand all the customers who'd actually managed to make an impression on him and even then, most of _them_ were only borderline memorable.

Dante on the other hand...

Randal couldn't even think about counting how many interesting people filtered into the Quick Stop at all hours.

He wasn't jealous, of course, because the idiots were infinitely easier to deal with than the interesting ones, but every once in a while he wondered what he would do if someone croaked in the curtained off adult video section.

After a while, he resigned himself to never getting a truly interesting customer and just stopped looking for them.

He suffered through the morons, halfwits and savages, cutting most of them down to size in his slightly passive aggressive, sarcastic way without incident.

But every once in a while, there was an _incident_.

The one that would always stick out most prominently in his memory took place around Christmas time when the owner of the RST had, for the first time, decided that some holiday decorations were in order.

He thought all the holly and mistletoe would help bring up customer volume or something, Randal supposed.

There were only a handful of people who popped inside the RST anymore. After all, even Randal rented at the movie palace that was Big Choice, the only people who came into the RST were either those who were used to Randal's antics (they numbered four) or those who didn't know any better.

So Randal's days were virtually work free. All he had to do was stay and watch the store.

Not that he did that anyway. He spent most of his time pestering Dante next door.

It never occurred to him that maybe the reason why _he_ never got any interesting customers in the video store was because he wasn't around when they showed up.

But on this particular night, he was in the right place at the right time.

Sprawled out on the counter, newspaper in it's usual place spread out in front of him, he heard the bell on the front door ring noisily.

He didn't bother to look up, of course, just flipped to the next page of the paper and continued reading.

Randal stayed that way until three video cases were plunked down next to his leg.

What am I saying, he stayed that way even _after_ the video cases were plunked down next to him.

Someone at the counter cleared their throat loudly in a decidedly feminine manner, trying to get his attention.

Randal just flipped the page again.

"Ahem."

If he was lucky, she'd give up and get lost.

"COUGH!"

Maybe one more page flip would do it...

"You've certainly got the disaffected youth act down to a science, don't you?"

Alright, this one was persistent.

Randal still didn't look up from his paper, "The term disaffected youth suggests that I am both disaffected and a youth. I'm insulted by your unfounded accusation that I'm disaffected."

"Wow...it _speaks_." A hand popped into view and pushed his newspaper down so that he was left looking at thin air, "I want to rent these."

He continued staring straight ahead to where his newspaper had been moments before, "That was rude."

"I _like_ rude," came the tart reply, "I'd _also_ like to rent these, if that's alright with _you_."

Clearly, this particular customer wasn't going to leave without a fight. Randal sighed and hopped off the counter.

It was the video cases he noticed first.

The Holy Grail. The Trinity in celluloid form, stacked in order in front of his face almost reverently.

The Star Wars Trilogy. The _original_ Star Wars trilogy.

Not the digitally enhanced versions either.

After the video cases, he noticed the customer.

Although Randal couldn't tell you a thing about her if you asked him later, at that moment, he felt like he'd been struck upside the head with a Louisville slugger.

There were two seconds during which Randal's higher brain functions went on vacation before he snapped back to reality and shook it off.

"You know, I've been looking for these everywhere," she said, tapping the cases with her hand, "The originals are pretty hard to find."

"Worth a lot on the secondary market."

"Mhm...or so I've heard." She slid her rental card across to him, "You know there's a Star Wars memorabilia collector who's willing to pay seven hundred dollars a tape for these because they're the original releases."

Randal was about to hit the button on the cash register that would pop the drawer open, when he suddenly found himself yanked forward by the shirt and nose to nose with the customer.

Or more importantly, lips to lips.

There was a moment of 'What the _fuck_?' and then there was the obligatory 'Penthouse Forum, here I come!' moment after that, followed closely by something incoherent in his head that not even a linguist could have made sense of.

It was fast, furious and over just as quickly as it had begun, but for the first time in recorded history, Randal Graves was honest to God _speechless_.

"Mistletoe," she muttered by way of explanation, slipping a hand around the tapes, "I'll see you around."

The bell on the door rang and she was gone.

He didn't even notice that the rental card she'd slipped him was nothing but a piece of laminated paper and that she had stolen the three rare video tapes out from under his nose.

In fact, Randal didn't notice much of anything for close to five solid minutes.

Maybe Dante didn't get all the interesting customers after all.

----

A/N: Alright...now that I've finished it, I dislike it. Bleah. It feels OOC, stupid and Sue-ish.

Well, at least I've got it out of my system and hopefully _someone_ liked it. I'll probably delete it later…


End file.
